By almost any measure, the vaccination campaign against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been a global success.
As of January 2023, more than 12 billion vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have been administered in an effort that has saved countless lives – more than 14 million in the first year of vaccine availability alone. With a 95% efficacy in the prevention of severe infection and death, and better safety profiles than similar historically effective vaccines, the biomedical community hoped that a combination of vaccination and natural immunity might bring the pandemic to a relatively quick end.
